Contents

Most of the film is a presentation of the argument for the Christ myth theory. Flemming and those he interviews in the film make these claims:

The history of Christianity, especially the doctrine of the earliest Christians, is consistent with Jesus having been a mythical character, with historical details only added on later.

The Pauline epistles, which were written before the Gospels, show no awareness on the part of the author that Jesus was supposed to have been a human being who recently lived. Paul mentions only the crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascension and presents them as having occurred in a mythic realm rather than an earthly one.

The death-resurrection-ascension sequence was common in previous mythologies and religions, making it more likely that the Jesus character was inspired by his similar forebears than that he actually lived on Earth.

Other details of the Jesus biography offered in the Gospels also have precedent in previous mythologies and religions, especially Judaism. For example, the Massacre of the Innocents appears to be directly inspired by a nearly identical story in the Book of Exodus.

Besides defending the Jesus myth hypothesis, the film criticizes some other aspects of Christianity:

Flemming argues that moderate Christianity makes even less sense than a fundamentalist interpretation of Christian doctrine, asserting that the Bible contains many messages incompatible with toleration of non-Christians, who reject Jesus as the Savior of Christian doctrine and must therefore be regarded by Christians as damned.

Flemming sees God's demand that people believe in him or be damned as essentially mind control. He interprets Mark 3:29 and similar passages as damning anyone who doubts the existence of the Holy Spirit. He is appalled by the notion that Jesus will forgive murder, theft, and any other sin but not this type of disbelief.

Because Jesus knows people's innermost thoughts, and that therefore one must police one's thoughts to avoid any doubt, Flemming summarizes this idea with the statement that the greatest sin in fundamentalist Christianity is "to think."

Flemming asserts that Christians have historically been obsessed with blood sacrifice, and illustrates this viewpoint by pointing out that Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, which contains very few scenes that do not feature graphic violence or suffering, was more financially successful than any previous film about Jesus.

Richard Carrier is an atheist activist and more recently, scholarly writer on the Christ Myth Theory, who holds a PhD in ancient history from Columbia University, New York.

Alan Dundes was an anthropologist and folklorist. Until his death shortly after being interviewed for the documentary, he was Professor of Folklore and Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ronald Sipus, principal of Village Christian School, which Brian Flemming attended as a youth. Sipus walked out of the interview, accusing Flemming of misrepresenting himself and his reasons for the interview.

In December 2006, the atheist organization Rational Response Squad announced it would give free DVDs of the film to the first 1,001 people who participated in the Blasphemy Challenge, an Internet-based project encouraging atheists to declare themselves publicly.[4]